Thursday, May 28, 2009

Breaking down Virginia's undecideds

Sometimes voters are undecided because they like multiple candidates in a race and can't make up their minds. And sometimes they're undecided because they don't know who any of the candidates are. The latter is the case in Virginia's Democratic contest for Governor.

Among the voters still undecided 66% don't know enough about Creigh Deeds or Brian Moran to have an opinion about them one way or the other, and 55% don't know enough about McAuliffe.

That's going to make late advertising crucial to winning those final votes. It's unclear who that benefits. On one hand you could argue that Terry McAuliffe has been on the air for months and not won these folks over, so the door is open for Moran or Deeds to earn their voters. On the other hand McAuliffe's considerable financial advantage will still likely make it so that he's more able to reach those voters with his message in the closing days.

Who are these remaining undecideds?

-They're disproportionately African American- 37%, compared to 27% of the overall primary electorate in our most recent survey. So far McAuliffe has had the upper hand with them so that could work to his advantage.

-They're disproportionately not from northern Virginia. While 29% of voters total in this race are, just 22% of the undecideds hail from the metro DC area. That's bad news for Brian Moran, who hasn't been able to get much momentum anywhere else in the state, and good news for Deeds whose weakest performance is in that region.

-They're more conservative and less liberal than primary voters as a whole. Among undecideds 27% are liberal and 22% are conservative, while in total 34% are liberal and just 14% are conservative. This could help Deeds, who does best with conservatives and worst with liberals, and hurt McAuliffe who does the best with liberals.